Locked In
by Cimz
Summary: In the aftermath of John Black's funeral, Carrie, Eric, Sami, Brady, and Belle find themselves locked in an office to discuss John, blame, and vengeance. One shot. Complete.


Locked In

**Note/Disclaimer**: All things _Days of Our Lives_ are property of Ken Corday and NBC. This fic appeared in a modified form under the title "Heaven" on the EJabby fansite Strange and Beautiful.

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><p>Sometimes people who didn't know the family well assumed that Carrie was the dominant personality. After all, she was the eldest, and the one who had often been treated more as partner than child by their assorted parents.<p>

Sometimes people, the old fashioned types, assumed that Eric was the dominant personality. He was the first son, and to top it off he had been a priest. What higher authority was there than that?

Most people assumed that Sami was the dominant personality. Sami was always the cause of some drama or other, and indeed she had been accused by her siblings over the years of monopolizing the family's time and resources.

There were a few financial types who assumed that Brady must be the dominant personality. Due to the unfortunate circumstance of his biological mother dying during his infancy, Brady could have bought and sold his siblings several times over.

But Carrie, Eric, Sami, and Brady knew the truth: it was Belle who was in charge. They knew this because none of them ever said no to Belle about anything. Even Sami, who had disowned all the others at least twice, quietly acquiesced when Belle banned Sami's husband from John's funeral.

And all of them willingly agreed when Belle said that she wanted them to be pallbearers.

"It feels right," Belle announced when they stood in the funeral home making the final arrangements. "He always said that his greatest achievement in his life was his family. His kids. I want it to be just us. No Shawn. No Austin. Just us."

So all five of them glared at the funeral director when he suggested that five pallbearers weren't enough, and that in any case Carrie, Sami, and Belle would not be able to lift a fair share of the heavy coffin.

"We'll make it work," glowered Brady, and the funeral director wisely determined that it would be best not to argue.

So it was that after the teary eulogies had been said and the prayers had been completed, they were the ones who carried the coffin from the church to the adjacent graveyard. Eric and Brady- each blaming himself for John's death- made every effort to do all of the lifting alone. Carrie, Sami, and Belle- never a trio to be ignored- refused to let it happen. John's children, biological and otherwise, worked together like they never had before. It was, all assembled agreed, a fitting tribute and one Belle had been clever to suggest.

Roses, and then dirt, covered the coffin.

As the mourners prepared to adjourn to the Brady Pub, the funeral director pulled the five of them aside to sign release paperwork that they should have signed the day before. Both Sami and Brady wanted to refuse on principle; they'd already done the pallbearing, and signing a retroactive release was ridiculous. If they wanted to punish the funeral director for being an idiot, they would. Eric made a quiet suggestion that they honor John's memory by following the Golden Rule, and Sami and Brady were thoroughly cowed.

Brady did give the door to the office a sharp kick as they went inside, and no one cared much when it slammed. Every one of them was terrified that Brady would turn to drugs or alcohol in his grief. A little misdirected anger at a door was a welcome alternative.

At least, it was a welcome alternative until Carrie tried to open the door again. It wouldn't budge. It seemed to have locked, but they could see no locking mechanism.

They all tried the knob in turns, and Brady gave the door a few more kicks. Nothing worked.

"It's no big deal," said Belle easily, as she rested her hand on Brady's arm. "I have the director's cell phone number in my phone. I'll call him and he'll open the door from the outside. It's not like he doesn't know we're here." She pushed a few buttons, and the other four watched as her face turned to consternation.

"Well?" demanded Sami when Belle tucked her phone back into her purse.

"Apparently they haven't closed this door in years because the lock is broken. They always meant to have it fixed, but they didn't get around to it."

"We're not having our next funeral here," muttered Sami. "Of course, they'll be out of business anyway after we sue them for false imprisonment."

Belle ignored her. "He called the locksmith before I called him, as soon as he saw that the door was closed. They think they'll have us out in less than an hour."

"Oh, they _think_ that, do they?" sneered Brady. He waved Belle away from the door. "I'll break it down and we'll be out in less than a minute."

Belle shook her head. "You'll hurt yourself."

"Thank you for your faith in me. Move."

Belle shook her head again.

"Come on, Tink," Brady wheedled. "I was the one who got us into this. Let me get us out."

"It wasn't your fault," Eric interrupted. "It was mine. You and Sami wanted to leave, and you were right. I should have listened instead of quoting the Bible at you."

"You wanted to do the right thing, and I wanted to do the wrong thing. Like always." Brady's fist was clenched hard at his side. There was no doubt that neither of them were really talking about the door.

"Maybe it was no one's fault." Carrie, the oldest, had always been good at mediation. "Maybe the only person at fault was the person who didn't fix the door." She looked around the room at her brothers and sisters. "Does anyone really need to get out right away? Do you need medicine? Food? Water? The restroom?"

One by one, they sullenly shook their heads.

"Are we really going to be any more miserable sitting here for the next hour than we would be at the Pub?"

Again, the silent vote was unanimous. Brady dropped to the floor and put his head in his hands, defeated. Belle sank down next to him, more gracefully, and grabbed one of his hands with both of her own.

Eric leaned against the far wall; Sami, ever his twin, did the same.

For her part, Carrie took the funeral director's chair. She quickly texted her father and her Aunt Hope to explain the situation and make sure that they looked out for Marlena.

They spent several long moment in silence before Brady ripped his hand away from Belle's and glared at them all. "Would one of you just start yelling at me and get it over with?" he demanded.

"You couldn't have known the door would lock if you kicked it," said Belle soothingly.

"I was talking more about how I killed our father," Brady told her. "How I got so drunk that I hit him over the head with a poker."

"Theresa says it was in self-defense," said Belle.

"Because Theresa's such a reliable source of honest information," muttered Sami. "She even lies about her name."

"She doesn't exactly lie about that," corrected Eric.

"Jeannie's a perfectly good name," said Sami with finality. "If we didn't change our names in junior high when we read _Lord of the Flies_ and everyone started making jokes about twins named Samneric-"

"Different people have different needs," said Eric with even more finality.

"Like _I_ need you to admit that it's my fault he's dead," said Brady.

"None of us are admitting that because it isn't true," said Carrie.

"We could just as easily say it's my fault," put in Eric. "Kristen was so desperate to keep me from testifying that she came up with this crazy drug that ended up killing him instead of reviving him. If I hadn't taken her deal, he might have come around on his own. He would have. He was so strong, I know he would have."

"You did the only thing you could do," said Sami in a gentle voice usually reserved for her children, and even then only when they were in moments of deep crisis. "You didn't have a real choice. When someone says 'do this and I'll save his life,' you do it. Especially when the person making the offer is a DiMera."

"And there's the silver lining," said Brady, his own voice heavy with anger and sarcasm. "Now you get to testify against the bitch. Her miracle cure didn't work. You don't recant your testimony. Her ass sits in prison for the rest of her unnatural life."

The quiet was palpable. "Maybe," said Eric and his voice was barely above a whisper.

"You aren't thinking about not testifying, are you?" Brady jumped up and crossed the room in two strides. He grabbed Eric by the arms with strong hands. "I meant what I told you that day in the churchyard. I will be here with you every step of the way. I will give you everything you need. I will protect you. I will support you. Every minute of every day. I know you don't have any reason to believe that I can be a good brother, but I can prove it to you. I swear I can. On every Bible in this place, I swear I can."

Belle jumped up, too, and leaned against Eric's other side. "I can stay in Salem if you need me too. There's still time to enroll Claire in school here for this year."

"Me too," agreed Carrie. "Austin and I are in a much stronger place than we were the last time we lived here. His mom's still here, and his brother. You say the word and we'll be here."

"And you know you have me," said Sami quietly. "You're my twin. That's… that's everything."

"See?" said Brady. "They all agree. It's not just the family screw up."

Sami nudged Brady playfully. "You know _I'm_ the family screw up. You don't get to take my title away just like that."

"Try to argue with me when you've murdered one of your parents while you were so drunk and high you couldn't even remember doing it."

"I spent a year on death row because I shot my fiance and couldn't remember doing it," said Sami bluntly. "They let me come home for one last night before they executed me. You and Belle hadn't seen me in months, but you ran into my arms and gave me hugs like I've never needed before or since. So knock it off with this bad brother stuff. And think long and hard about whether you want to take Miss Jeannie 'Theresa's' word that you were even the one who hit John."

"Even if I didn't hit him," began Brady, and the others exchanged startled looks. They had never before heard Brady so hesitant to claim ownership of the crime. "Even if I didn't, I still let him die without knowing how much I loved him."

"Every one of us, except maybe Belle, was hard on him sometimes," said Eric. "And if you actually hit him, you aren't the only one."

Brady eyed Eric up and down suspiciously. "You expect me to believe that you of all people took a swing at someone, let alone my father?"

"I was about nineteen," said Eric. "It was the first time I'd been back in Salem since I was a little kid. I saw John, and just seeing him made me furious. I was furious about what happened between him and Mom while she was still married to Dad. I was furious about what that did to Sami. So I walked right up to him and I hit him." Eric glanced around, meeting each of his siblings' eyes for effect. "And he stood there and told me that it was a lousy punch and I ought to fight like I'd been taught."

They all laughed.

"If I tried to tell you about every time I was horrible to John, we'd be here all day," said Sami. "So I'm just going to stick with the time I was in the middle of a rant about how he was destined to kill Mom or something ridiculous like that and the heel of my shoe snapped off. He just takes it out of my hand, whacks it against the side of one of the booths at the Pub to fix it, and hands it back to me. He doesn't even interrupt me while I'm screaming at him."

They laughed again.

"I was terrible to John when he first came into our lives," said Carrie quietly. "Belle and Brady weren't born yet and the twinners are too young to remember. But I gave him hell every day of the week. Every other sentence out of my mouth was 'you aren't my father.'"

"You turned out to be right," said Sami and Eric in unison.

"No," said Carrie. "I don't think I did. Biologically, yes, I was right. But in every way that matters, he was every bit as much a father to us as the real Roman Brady. And when we said we hated him for it, he knew we really loved him. Every time."

"He did," Eric and Sami agreed, still perfectly in sync.

"He knew you love him. He knew you were just in trouble," said Eric.

"You told him so many times in your life how much you love him. You were in a rough spot and you lashed out. He gets that. He had enough practice with me," completed Sami.

Brady stared hard at the floor, his eyes suddenly too bright. "Thank you," he said.

"We love you too," said Belle. "All of us do. Always."

"We do," said Eric.

Brady raised his eyes to meet Eric's then. "Don't think I didn't notice that you didn't answer my question. Are you considering letting Kristen get away with what she did to you?"

Eric was silent.

"Sami, what does your twin radar say?" asked Carrie.

"There's no such thing as twin radar," said Eric.

Carrie brushed him off. "I beg to differ. I was there on those ski trips with the two of you and John, remember? You could always find each other no matter how lost you got. It was weird. I wanted to bring you to school for my science fair project but John said no."

Sami grabbed Eric's arm. Eric wrenched it away.

"You wouldn't be afraid to let her touch you if she couldn't get a radar reading on you doing that," said Carrie wisely.

"Maybe I just want some space." Eric extracted himself from the knot his siblings had formed around him and flung himself to the floor near the door where Brady had started out their imprisonment.

"He's not going to do it," Sami announced, her voice full of righteous indignation. "He's going to let that bitch get away with what she did to him. To Brady. To John. He's so afraid that he's just going to-"  
><em><br>"Shut up, Sami!"  
><em>  
>Belle, Carrie, and Brady were all forced to take a moment to collect their jaws from the floor. All of them told Sami to shut up at least three times a week when they had to see her on a regular basis. Eric, though, usually had the patience of a saint when it came to his twin. He rarely raised his voice to anyone, in fact, especially after he had trained to be a priest.<p>

"Just back off," said Eric, and there was something in his voice so broken that Belle, who had been reaching out for him as she had reached for Brady earlier, stopped in her tracks.

"Why?" asked Sami. "Not why should I back off. Why are you so scared?"

"Samantha Gene, you are the last person on the entire planet who gets to sit in judgement on me for this."

"Okay. Why is that?"

"When one of Stefano DiMera's kids raped _you_ to get revenge on our parents for stuff that happened before we were ever born, what did _you_ do? You married the guy and had two kids with him. Belle had to beg you to keep him from taking a victory lap around John's funeral today. Just saying, I never saw _you_ on the witness stand humiliating yourself trying to put someone whose family owns every judge in the state in prison."

Sami set her jaw. "EJ changed."

"Which is why you're currently in the process of stealing his family business and running it into the ground. Because he's such a sweet guy who loves you so much."

"Because he cheated on me and he needs to be punished," said Sami coolly. "You're familiar with the Ten Commandments? Thou shalt not commit adultery. Number six."

"You weren't so concerned with the Ten Commandments when EJ was married to Nicole and you were married to Rafe."

"We thought our child was dead!" objected Sami.

"Oh yes, dead babies, the universal turn-on," said Eric with more scorn than any of them had thought possible.

"That's, like, the weirdest twin yin-yang thing I've ever heard of," said Brady to no one in particular. "A kid Sami loves almost dies, and she has sex with a man she hates. A kid Eric loves almost dies, and he takes a vow of celibacy."

"Let's all pretend Brady never said that," suggested Belle when Eric and Sami whirled on Brady in unison.

Sami theatrically turned her back on Brady to glare at Eric. "Anyway, it's not like Rafe was innocent. He was busy doing Disney princess dances with Carrie. And hey, I'm not even going to blame Carrie for that one, because what was Austin doing? He was off with Little Miss Slutty, Abby Deveraux. There's a bit of a pattern here."

"The thing that I really couldn't get my mind around with Austin and Abigail," said Carrie quietly, "was how young she is. I remember when she was a baby. I just kept saying it over and over again. 'She's so young.' Was it like that for you, Sami?"

"I didn't take much time to dwell on vital statistics," said Sami. "I'm more about seek and destroy. EJ is the love of my life, and-"

"If he's the love of your life, why's he cheating on you?" asked Brady.

"Why did he stand outside my father's hospital room and threaten to kill all of us if you didn't marry him?" asked Belle.

"Why did he fake your daughter's murder and tell your cancer-ridden son that you didn't love him anymore?" asked Carrie.

"Why did he rape you?" asked Eric.

"You're ganging up on me. This isn't fair," said Sami.

"I'm just saying," said Carrie. "Last time I was in Salem, Rafe was the love of your life. He's a great guy, he was great to your kids, and he thought you hung the moon."

"You spent a long time saying Austin was the love of your life," said Brady. "Just putting that out there."

"I always liked the idea of you and Brandon," said Eric mildly. "I admit I've never met the guy. But you were happy when you were with him, and I know he loved you. It still annoys Nicole how much he loved you."

"Come on," said Belle, the one who always won these fights. "You all know who it was supposed to be for Sami. Lucas. You were perfect for each other. I was there the day you asked him for a divorce, remember? You were crying your eyes out. You only did it because EJ said he'd kill all of us if you didn't. He stood there and told you to put extra guards on Will because Will was next on the hit list."

Sami straightened her shoulders and stared them all down. "Austin is perfectly happy with Carrie. Rafe is perfectly happy with Jordan. Lucas is perfectly happy with Sheryl, and Brandon is perfectly happy wherever the hell he is. They are my past and EJ is my future."

"And yet you're spending all your time and energy destroying him instead of moving forward," said Belle.

"I wouldn't expect you to understand how serious adultery is, Belle."

"Why? Oh, wait, because I'm the product of adultery who ruined your parents' marriage by being born."

"More because you've probably convinced Shawn and Philip that nightly three-ways are the way to go."

"Sami," said Eric with distaste.

"You're not a priest anymore. News flash: it happens."

"Not in my bed it doesn't," said Belle, and she flushed uncomfortably. "Philip is my friend. That's all."

Sami sighed. "I'm sorry, Belle-baby. I know. Even if he wasn't, I wouldn't change one hair on your head. I was mad at Mom and John for that affair for a long time. I was never mad at you."

"Except when you tried to sell her on the black market," put in Brady.

"That wasn't personal," said Sami. "Why are you ganging up on me?"

"Because you're trying to defend the indefensible," said Belle. "You're trying to tell us that EJ is the love of your life, and also someone you would shoot in the head. You're trying to tell us that he's your husband and your enemy. You're trying to tell us that he's the only one when we know he's not. You're trying to make the fact that he doesn't love you all about Abby Deveraux."

"He loves me!" Sami objected.

"If that's love, no one needs it. He's probably with Abby right now."

Sami made a face at Belle. "I'll show you where he is right now. We have that tracking app on our phones." She removed her phone from her boot, where it was securely tucked, and pulled up the app.

Belle's eyes widened as she leaned in close to Sami to read the screen. "Don't say anything," she mouthed to the others.

They didn't have to say anything. Sami's stormy expression said it all. "He's at the Horton house," she told them unnecessarily. "He used the occasion of John's funeral to get alone time with cute little Abby."

"Why do you care?" asked Belle.

"Because he's married to me!"

"You married him knowing he was sleeping with her!"

"Only so I could destroy him."

"Which you didn't do when he raped you. Eric's right. You're asking him to do something you wouldn't do yourself."

Sami shrugged, suddenly calm. "It's different."

"How?"

"Everyone knows who the good twin is and who the evil twin is. No one would have believed me. They would have said- I heard a woman say once that EJ shouldn't be arrested for rape, I should be arrested for prostitution because I sold my body in exchange for Lucas' life."

"That's horrible," said Belle. "That's horrible and that's wrong."

"Tink," said Brady to Belle. "You really do need to stay in Salem until this Kristen thing is over. You or Carrie or both. Eric doesn't trust me, not that he has a reason to, and Sami has no credibility."

Sami put her hands on her hips and scowled at Brady. "It was a completely different situation."

"In AA, they teach us that you can't love and respect other people until you love and respect yourself."

Sami rolled her eyes heavenward. "I am not listening to what AA says, or what the Bible says, or what Carrie the serial cheater says, or-" Her eyes stopped on Belle, the one none of them were ever cruel to. "Belle? Do you really think I should just let it go? What EJ did to me with Abby?"

"No," said Belle quietly. "I think you should leave him and I think you should leave him forever. I think he brings out the absolute worst in you and none of your best. I think he has never been good enough for you. It hurts me to see you with him. It hurts me that you would be with him knowing what he did to me, and Daddy, and Shawn, and Philip, and Max, and Stephanie, and Bo, and Kayla, and Steve, and-"

"But if sweet little Abby were with him, that could be okay?"

"Abby isn't my sister. I like Abby, but you are my sister and I always choose you over her. Maybe EJ isn't so toxic when he's with her. Maybe he is. But either way, when he's with you, all he does is hurt you and make you hurt him back. He makes you less than what you are."

"He's changed a lot since the last time you were in Salem."

"That doesn't make him right for you." Before Sami could answer, Belle changed the subject, unwilling to let the argument escalate further. "You know, I haven't spent this much time with all of you together since Mom and Dad got married. And that was in 1999."

"Remember the bouquet?" Carrie picked up hastily. "How they chose a flower for each of us and told the congregation why it represented us? Belle was a daisy, and Brady was a sunflower, and Sami was a rose…"

"I remember how you danced with me at the reception," Belle told Brady. "I still keep that picture of us on display." She held out her hand to him. "Dance with me now? For Daddy?"

Obediently, Brady stood up and pulled Belle to him. Carrie fidgeted with her phone until she found a song to play for them.

Eric held out his hand to Sami, and she accepted with a curtsy that made Eric laugh. "I haven't danced with you in a long time," she murmured.

"Yeah."

She dropped her voice to a whisper so only Eric could hear. "You're right. If you want to take a pass on the whole bringing Kristen to justice thing, you should. I thought I could save the world from EJ and I couldn't."

"Thank you," he whispered back. "Samantha Gene, I want you to pay attention to how this feels."

"How what feels?"

"This is dancing with someone who loves you. Even if I'm only your brother. I understand why women sometimes think that being with any man is better than nothing. What I don't understand is why you would think that you have nothing if you aren't with EJ or Rafe or Lucas or whoever."

Sami swallowed hard and gave Eric a hug. "Go dance with Carrie," she said quietly. "She should get a turn."

In tribute to John, Eric raised an eyebrow at Sami. She was rarely so magnanimous, especially when it came to Carrie.

Sami pulled her phone from her boot once more. The stalker app was still open; EJ had left the Horton house and returned home. She sighed and closed it out, opening her camera instead. She watched Belle and Brady and Carrie and Eric and saved the peaceful moment on a sad day for posterity.

When there was a knock on the door and an instruction to try to open it from the inside, she did. The door swung open easily, almost to her disappointment.

The locksmith grinned at her, and so did the funeral director. "Samantha DiMera, right?" he asked.

"Brady," she corrected. "Sami Brady."

**The End**


End file.
